Saturday, April 09, 2011

What is WikiSpooks?

When I first encountered the WikiSpooks site, I considered it a good idea, and even considered making a contribution (of words, not coin). The entry on Michael Ledeen had some juicy tidbits previously unknown to me, and I've been a Ledeen-watcher for decades.

But I now have qualms.

We don't know who is behind the site, which has no apparent connection to Julian Assange's Wikileaks. The only information about the site founder is here, and nothing there gives much encouragement.

Retired Englishman. Still self-reliant BUT...., until a definitive Blue Pill/Red Pill moment a few years ago, trapped in the 'consensus trance' by nearly 60 years shouldering of "The White Man's Burden"

- By which I mean adherence & loyalty to the Establishment narrative of an essentially benign, well-intentioned, 'Washington Consensus' promoting British State, busily engaged in 'making the world a better place' - or words to that effect. Since rank, position and place are of no consequence to me, I took the Red Pill.

God, I cannot stand this "red pill" metaphor that modern conspiracy-crazed pseudo-hipsters have latched onto. The most annoying pill-poppers are the ones who've fallen for those absurd "controlled demolition" theories: "Me take red pill! Me smart: You dumb! Me cool: You uncool!" This terminology is so fucking self-congratulatory it makes me want to bop someone's noggin with a bowling pin.

Lissen up, twerps: If you were really smart and cool, you wouldn't be mindlessly repeating a cliche originally lifted from the most overrated piece of claptrap ever to ooze out of Hollywood. Wanna prove your shmartness cred? Come up with a fucking originalidea, or at least with a new way to phrase a familiar concept.

(I saw a preview screening of The Matrix in Pasadena while sick with the flu. Ever since that night, I can't expose myself to 15 consecutive seconds of that film's puke-green ambience without reliving the whole for-god's-sake-try-not-to-upchuck experience.)

Back to WikiSpooks: What really troubles me is that this British fellow claims that he "woke up" only a few years ago. Oh Christ. Christ Christ Christ. Whoever this guy is, he's a toddler. Never trust a newcomer.

Yes, the New York Times and CBS News (and whatever institutions play cognate roles in the U.K.) are often full of shit. But guess what? Most of the "samizdat" writers are also full of shit. "Outside" political thinkers imagine themselves to be daring, radical intellectual rebels. Too often, though, they display a twenty-buck streetwalker's willingness to swallow anything.

Mr. WikiSpooks will probably learn that lesson in another five or ten years. (Most people are lucky to read a book a week, which means maybe 500 books in a decade. 500 books barely gets you past stupid.) Right now, I wouldn't trust him to get it right even if his intentions are pure, which they probably are.

(Frankly, my assessment might be less cynical if they guy's grammar weren't so iffy.)

that both "Official narratives" and "Official Opposition narratives" are, by definition, always more-or-less in service to "The Establishment".

I can agree with this, to a degree. In fact, I made a very similar point a few posts down. What bugs me is the footnote attached to the bit quoted above:

The most succinct rendering of 'Opposition' as integral to 'Establishment' is probably that of the founder of modern Zionism Theodor Hertzl who counseled "We will lead every rebellion against us". A seemingly ridiculous contradiction, but in practice a principle at the very heart of the exercise of Machiavellian Power.

First: It's been awhile since I've read good old Mac, but I don't recall him ever prescribing this "sockpuppet rebellion" scenario.

Second, and more important: The Herzl quote is, as far as I can tell, yet another example of False Quotation Syndrome, an ailment which usually (though not always) afflicts folks on the right.

If you use Google to look up both variants of the quote (the more common version has "revolution" instead of "rebellion"), you will see that all the links go to crank websites -- and none of the cranks even attempt to cite an actual piece of writing by or about Theodor Herzl. If those words had ever appeared in any authoritative source, they would show up in a Google Books search, which can give you relevant snippets from all of the major Herzl bios. Alas, the quote just isn't there. (By all means, please double-check my work.)

Not only that: The very idea is foreign to Herzl's way of thinking. I like Theodor Herzl, even though I don't like what Israel has turned into. (Herzl, if he were still around, would almost certainly agree with my assessment. The poor guy would just shit if he saw that damned wall.) He was not a hyper-manipulative player of 11-dimensional chess intent on covert world conquest. He was a well-meaning, somewhat self-deceived idealist sincerely -- and justifiably -- pissed off by the rotten treatment meted out to his fellow Jews. (The opening of this article should suffice to make the point.) The only people who say otherwise are nutjobs and racists.

Why is this important? Because much damage has been done -- in the U.K. and especially in the U.S. -- by arrogant jackass conspira-fucks who think that their Red Pill addiction gives them the right to make shit up.

Mr. WikiSpooks, like many another Red Pill swiller, claims that his encounter with the Beatific Vision has allowed him to see beyond those silly, deceptive and horribly un-hip categories of right and left. In the past, whenever I've run into a pill-popper who talked this kind of talk, he always turned out to be just another reactionary creep trying to get me to read Atlas Shrugged. Or the latest from LaRouche. Or maybe the Protocols.

(At least, that's the way it usually works here in the U.S. Things may be saner in the U.K., although the example of David Icke doesn't give me much encouragement.)

I'm pissed off.

What pisses me off most of all is the fact that research into spooks -- which is what I hoped WikiSpooks would be all about -- always gets lumped in with deep-dish conspiracy wackiness. The "green inkers" (as British newspaper editors used to call them) tend to take over the show.

Much of the unwritten history of the past 75-or-so years was made by operatives of the world's various intelligence services. Alas, every time someone attempts to track down what the spooks have gotten up to, the Great Diverters show up to the party: "The real story is the Bilderbergers! The Illuminati! The Freemasons! The Jews!"

And so the CIA continues to do what it does unmolested, because the kook legions will always decredibilize the few real researchers.

a) You are right. Grammar is a a dead giveaway. No one who ever worked for the FCO, MI5 or SIS would have gotten past the examinations if they didn't have a very good grasp of grammar.

b) Its a terrible shame about David Icke. He was a very good goalkeeper and back in his playing days for Coventry City he was actually perfectly cogent - about football at least. I know its difficult to believe now.

Harry

posted by Anonymous : 10:17 PM

@ Harry, wow. I never thought I'd hear any words about what a "shame it is about David Icke." I mean, blaming Jews, whatever---every last conspiracy out there can be identified by the words "Zion/ist" or "Jew."

But lizard people from outer space? uhhh, yeah, it's a real darn shame about Icke.

posted by Zee : 1:26 AM

Josef Cannon: "God, I Ok, thats enough.->VERY helpfull in establishing any authenticity of ANY source.

Very objective tool.

Now my question:Considering that NOT the ones already "in the know" (like you) have to be targeted in any directed campaign by propaganda, but naturally the ones who's attention is to be captured are the ones that previously fell pray to any one of those DIS-infomation campaigns which really exist. There really ARE the ones that got caught. How do YOU free them, if not by picking them up in those terms that they "know" and wisely guiding them out of their error?This entity is doing right THIS.I do not know of any argument that is based on and starts with " God, I".That's counter productive in the best interpretation of the act.

Are You really going to disface a -ALWAYS possible- disinformation campaign based on that "God, I".-gimme a breaK ...

Joe -- don't sweat over missing a guess on government shutdown. It was heading there for all the reasons stated in the mainstream. Boehner played his best hand and risked the wrath of the tea-bagging faction.

I've been wary of both wiki-leaks and -spooks. This feels like a classic instrument of opinion manipulation from one of the usual suspects (LaRouche, Big Intel, savvy rightists) w/very little to gain for our team, the dissenting party. The one semi-progressive political narrative in this republic, with any legs right now is the grim chronicle of how the rich are getting richer and diminishing the rest of us.